This story gives me bad feels :’(

last edited at Jan 3, 2020 3:13AM

ah fucking hell, yea thats one hell of a ride,, there are some comments (specifically MacySan's comment) that makes me want to press that like button bc of how accurate their comment is to the story but dynasty doesnt have one, i wouldve honestly love this if Sacchan and Ruki didnt end up together but if the author just wants me to feel this frustration then good job u did it

I really hate this series, lmao. I know i already commented before about how i dislike this series so much i can't even click the link to it, I'd like to comment again since i forgot how bad this is after reading amano's other works.

As someone who got cheated on 4 times already, i define cheating as when a third party is involved in your relationship. For cheating to happen, there has to be a relationship involved. I only read the last few chapters coz i feel like im gonna puke if i read the whole thing again, but Sacchi did say at the confrontation with ruki at the end that she played around with remi. And she did it so she can feel how it likes to cheat. For me, that statement meant that 1. They were in a relationship since for one to cheat, they had to be in a relationship (imagine if you had a crush on a celebrity and you're calling them a cheater for having a gf/bf, doesn't make sense right?) 2. She knew ruki had feelings for her, she knew they were in a relationship since cheating on someone entails that you guys are in a relationship. To those saying it wasn't clear if they were going out, yea it was. Lol. Stop trying to defend cheating. Cheating is bad. And sacchi was cheating on ruki, that's what she said. Lel. And she didn't fail to cheat. Shw successfully cheated on ruki. What she failed to do was to change ruki's mind about her. Also please stop trying to twist cheating into something good coz she realized she had feelings for ruki after cheating. Even if they were going out after all that mess, that relationship is prolly at least x10 more toxic than Chernobyl right after the reactor leaked.

In short, i hate cheating, i hate this story. Lmaooo. And for those going to down play my comment as "cHeaTing bAd hurr durr get over it". Cheating is bad. There's not a gray area in there. It's a shitty thing to do to someone no matter what kind of intention or goal was behind it.

Edit: Forgot to add that what i especially dislike about the ending is it's basically saying that: Cheating is okay as long as you're doing it with the right intentions. Like it's just a normal thing to do to find yourself. Really dislike bad things that hurt other people being normalized as something healthy to do for you. It's like normalizing something like it's okay for a murderer to kill a few people each month so they don't get pent up and commit genocide. I don't dislike the author, their new series is pretty sweet. Just dislike the ending. Would've been cool if it showed ruki moving on and happy with another person, at least that i can stomach.

last edited at Aug 29, 2020 5:53AM

I am not going to comment every time I re-read this but I wanted to leave it on a high note. Every time I do re-read it, I get more out of it. It's on my short list of yuri masterpieces. And I have to say, Sachiko and Ruki (Sachiko's last name is even quite, quite similar to Ogasawara, you know, and Ruki is somewhat similar to Yumi) have a good relationship -Ruki is 100% committed and Sachiko told her family about her already. It's the kind of thing Fukasawa Yumi would have killed to have with her Sachiko.

I really loved marimite and have re watched all 4 seasons of it multiple times, so i have to really stop you right there when you're comparing the Marimite Sachiko to the sacchi here. There would prolly be no way on hell that Sachiko would hurt yumi like that. And if there is a reality where that occurred, the onee-sama yumi loved would've died immediately the moment she cheated, meaning that's not the Sachiko Yumi loved all that time. And pretty sure Yumi wouldn't stand Sachiko cheating on her, they had a whole arc about that with Touko remember? Pretty sure Yumi wouldn't kill for a toxic relationship that ruki decided to settle on. Also ruki may be 100% committed, but what about sacchi? Pretty sure telling your family about your relationship doesn't always necessarily mean you're settled on that person, whether you're coming out to your family in doing so or not.

last edited at Aug 29, 2020 6:01AM

I'm not here to be a Sachi apologist years after the fact, but I do think she has a gotten a far worse rap than she probably deserves. It definitely didn't sit well with me after I had just finished reading, but I also realized I originally did so under the assumption that this is a gay manga where everyone is gay and also with the view that Ruki is the protagonist of the story. After going back and rereading the last few chapters with Sachi's thoughts in mind, it actually gave me a different perspective.

To start out with, Sachi clearly considered herself straight up until Ruki confessed her love to her. And even then, we can tell by what is said later on in the story that Sachi was just going along with Ruki, like she thought she should do, and without really considering her own feelings or sexuality. And this doesn't really seem to change for a while. The fact that she thought "it's different from a guy, but it'll calm her down either way" when having sex with Ruki for the first time again demonstrates that she's willing to just be pulled along without taking stock of her own emotions (something that Ruki later gets upset with her for: "I thought you'd say no"). At this point, Sachi has really been nothing but a passenger in Ruki's relationship with her, and while we can tell she does have some form of feelings for Ruki with the whole "introduce me" incident with her ex, we also know that they are unclear to her. This is compounded by the fact that Remi kisses her immediately after she takes her first real step to affirming her feelings for Ruki, instead just making everything more muddled (as Remi planned).

So now we're at the part in the story where Sachi seems to start doing some soul searching with the help of Remi, who of course sees no problem with using her position has a trusted friend to take advantage of Sachi's uncertainty. She gets her smashed, takes her home, and proceeds to get even more inside Sachi's head. The fact that Remi also left a kiss mark on Sachi's arm specifically to upset Ruki lets us know that she is very much in knowing control of the situation. Remi's next move is to tell Sachi that she slept with Ruki (introducing even more doubt into their relationship), before offering to do the same with Sachi. At this point, I find it hard to see Sachi's initiation here as anything more than a manufactured response as the result of being emotionally manipulated and taken advantage of by someone she trusts. Even after the deed is done, Remi doesn't miss a beat and sets about convincing Sachi that she shouldn't feel bad for hurting Ruki and that not only is it natural, but that her relationship with Ruki is just a phase. Of course, a nice side effect of this is that if it really means nothing, then they can keep having sex, which unsurprisingly benefits Remi...

From there it's a pretty straight shot to Sachi's confession of what happened. I don't think the line "I wanted to see how it feels to be the cheater" is untrue when Sachi says it, but I also don't think she would've actually done it had Remi not wanted it to be so. I also think that Sachi is genuine in her confession to Ruki, and while every thing up to that point was an absolute shitshow, that Sachi actually managed to find her true feelings for Ruki in all of it. This can be further seen in the "don't you think we would have gotten together somehow" line in the bonus chapter. Those are not the words of someone who lacks confidence in their relationship. The Sachi who was just going along with Ruki would have simply shrugged.

I also would like to contextualize the Remi/Sachi interaction in the bonus chapter by reminding everyone at that point Sachi and Ruki had been seriously dating for over two years and been with each other for over three. And that Remi would have been there the entire time. I truly believe that Sachi's reaction was intended to get under Ruki's skin in a playful way and not in any way a serious consideration of sleeping with Remi.

To sum it up, yes, Sachi behaved in a pretty shitty manner. However, a lot of people miss exactly how much of it is attributable to Remi being human garbage who puppeteered the entire thing for both her own amusement and to prove a completely incorrect point (that Sachi was straight).

last edited at Oct 25, 2020 11:35AM

I really loved marimite and have re watched all 4 seasons of it multiple times, so i have to really stop you right there when you're comparing the Marimite Sachiko to the sacchi here. There would prolly be no way on hell that Sachiko would hurt yumi like that. And if there is a reality where that occurred, the onee-sama yumi loved would've died immediately the moment she cheated, meaning that's not the Sachiko Yumi loved all that time. And pretty sure Yumi wouldn't stand Sachiko cheating on her, they had a whole arc about that with Touko remember? Pretty sure Yumi wouldn't kill for a toxic relationship that ruki decided to settle on. Also ruki may be 100% committed, but what about sacchi? Pretty sure telling your family about your relationship doesn't always necessarily mean you're settled on that person, whether you're coming out to your family in doing so or not.

I think the Touko arc was quite similar to the Remi arc. The author got hundreds of letters like "We hate Touko, don't let her be Yumi's petite soueur!!" And Yumi was even more crushed than Ruki. And Yumi sucked it all up - even the criminal neglect by Sachiko, even the way Touko destroyed her pride - because that's just how much Yumi loves Sachiko.

Don't let how feminine the two Sacchans look - and their damsel in distress introductions -- fool you. They are, and prefer to be, the guys in their relationships. Period. I would compare Sachiko chasing off Kanako to Sachi swatting Remi.

And I think telling your beloved little sister - nervously - that not only do you have a girl friend, but not even a "cool" girlfriend, is super-meaningful. Sachi told her sister the main reason she dated her boyfriend was that he was cool. But she's with Ruki because she's Ruki.

And if Yumi was told "you have to go through another cycle like with Touko, but this time you're both in college and Sachiko will cheat on you but after that you will be an official, together couple - I think Yumi would accept it thankfully. It's easy to talk big about how devoted you are to Sachiko with the other Sachiko fan-girls, but what eveyone in Marimite was impressed by was Yumi's absolute demonstrated devotion to Sachiko. She was as much a doormat as Ruki, easily. She even refused the rosary why? "My pride as a Sachiko fan." I could easily see Sachiko marrying Suguru and Yumi being her mistress (although since Sachiko would hate to think of it that way Yumi would be her secretary, or even adopted by her).

And if Sachi cheated on Ruki after they were a couple, Ruki would leave her. Just like Yumi compared taking the rosary for bad reasons to Sachiko's loveless sham engagement. Ruki landed her woman, and kept her. That's why I think she's quite happy. And so is Sacchan.

I know she was written exactly with that in mind but... god dammit i despise Remi....

last edited at Feb 2, 2021 4:46AM

for me at this point, it would've been better off for ruki and sachi to not be together at all. i'd be fine with all that angst. i do hate remi but sachi giving in just to experience "cheating" disappoints me.
i'm just counting on maasa and meru now. and that fue and ruki deserved so much better.

last edited at Mar 12, 2021 9:19AM

I hate it so much that ruki ended up with sachi, like what the hell girl. omg I'm done the last few chapters really did it to me.
too fucking close to home dude, anyways it was a good read.

Just reread this. It's hard to describe how this series makes me feel with words. It's a hell of a roller coaster, with characters with more flaws than you could count. (Except for Ruki, she is an angel and deserves all the happiness.) It's easy to see Sachi as a bad person, and I won't even disagree, but I respect that they wrote such a flawed love interest who grows and changes like a real person.

I think it hurts so much because it hits way too close home for many people. I was cheated on and this manga just regurgitates those memories and feelings. It's even aggravated by the fact that Ruki just swallows it up and accepts Sachi while still being hurt. I've been there, in a toxic relationship where you don't even know how to get out of, when you have such attachment to this other person that you end up diminishing your own self worth. So yeah this is very realistic, that's why it hurts. But it's obvious to me their relationship will not last. You can't make it work with so much baggage, at some point these feeling of betrayal will come to surface from Ruki and she will confront them. And I don't believe for a second Sachi loves Ruki, so when that happens she'll most likely just toss her aside without a care. Damn what a mess.

I actually read this back in 2018 and its still stuck with me so, that's definitely something to commend the mangaka for.

That scene at the beach made my stomach drop. I felt fucking awful, which means it's good writing.

I think Sachi and Ruki getting together is a bit rushed, and we really don't see the love that Sachi feels for Ruki, so that part also feels underwritten, but I don't mind the development or the conclusion. Some relationships have struggles and then they get to a good place. Ultimately it's up to the people in the relationship to decide whether or not they want to stay together after one of them has fucked up.

What I really don't get is why either of those two girls is still friends with Remi. Like, I kind of think that should be one of the conditions for them being together is not to hang out with Remi. Asuna having sex with Meru while Fue knows about it is one thing. Remi having sex with whoever is also fine. But Remi specifically targeting Sachi because she knows it will hurt Ruki is so fucked up. And then she has the gall to throw it in Ruki's face in a way she knows will hurt her. Like, she's evil. She's a sociopath. It's not okay.

The manga is bad-end hentai with the sex scenes removed. Remi is a textbook campus rapist. No character totally rejects the toxic dynamic of the group, no one faces long-term consequences, half the cast are varying degrees of psyhcopaths without empathy. Emotionally the worst is the ostensible main character Ruki is first manipulated into sex by Remi when drunk (even if not rape from Ruki's perspective, Remi was determined to get sex by alcohol if seduction didn't work so intended drunken rape), and then Ruki gets emotionally abused with promise of more to come.

Remi literally tried to use powdered drugs on people, and gets girls incredibly drunk so they can't consent. Implied to be far more girls offscreen. The core plot structure of this manga is built around a rapist sociopath who doesn't get caught and will not change. It's to the point where it was totally normal to get others to facilitate a revenge-rape.

So yeah. I should have dropped this instead of being a completionist. If it's your taste that's fine, but be self-aware how much of this is non-consensual or only incidentally consensual outside of Rumi's determination to get laid.

last edited at Feb 10, 2022 5:56PM

i binged this and now i feel like shit

this shouldve ended with ruki and sachi not ending up together and i hate that it did

A lot of drama here. But I just want to comment, after re-reading this after 5 years: It is really fucking good writing. Amano-sensei really did a great, GREAT job with this one. It makes you feel sad, angry, anxious, destroyed, happy, deppresed, furious, amazed, disturbed and... overall, it just transmits a lot of emotions to the reader, trapping us on the story, making us emphatize with a character or hate every one of them.
It is still, and forever will be, on my ART list.
(Glad they licensed it for México. Ran to the manga store to buy the volumes)

last edited at Jul 15, 2022 5:59PM

I'm not here to be a Sachi apologist years after

Then proceeds to write the wall of text known as an “Sachi apologist” by twisting the plot to make it seemn like the scum cheater ain’t that scum! lol

To sum it up, yes, Sachi behaved in a pretty shitty manner. However, a lot of people miss exactly how much of it is attributable to Remi being human garbage who puppeteered the entire thing for both her own amusement and to prove a completely incorrect point (that Sachi was straight).

Yeah I’m not buying any of this :/ even years after there are people trying to make it semn like an bloody adult doesn’t know what cheating is in the hope to make it seemn less disgusting lol

last edited at Aug 8, 2022 2:08PM

I consider this manga a win for the "I support women's wrongs" club

Really surprised by all the takes saying the main couple shouldn't have gotten together. as though ruki isn't emotionally mature enough to recognize that a former abuse victim might be very easily manipulated, especially given how easily she was manipulated into doing the same thing by the same person. She intended to break off the "relationship" not specifically because of the cheating, but because she had always understood innately that it was a tenuous, one-sided connection that Sachi was only a part of out of convenience and not genuine love. It was functionally dead in the water unless something changed in Sachi.

And why wouldn't Ruki forgive Sachi after she basically got confirmation that Remi coerced her into it? Any resentment that she has towards the situation was pretty much transplanted onto Remi for taking advantage of her. Again that final conversation wasn't "why", it was "I know this isn't working and you're only doing this because I pushed you into it, I'm so sorry." It just happened that Sachi had done her own soul searching and was ready to prove her wrong.

It's also easy for anyone to stand back and say "you shouldn't forgive that, that's always wrong, break up with that person" when your own feelings are on the line. Especially since Ruki is the only one who can ascertain how hurt she is by something, and whether or not to trust Sachi moving forward. If that's a bridge too far for you that's understandable, but it felt completely in character given their pasts and circumstances.

Ruki is a dmb girl, Sachi's reason to cheat is the dmbest one. What I hated the most from this manga is the fact that Ruki is ok with Remi still being so close to her, and the fact that Remi didn't get the karma she deserved.
And Fue's and Asuna's relationship was f***ed up since the beginning. They just didn't match each other at all. After cheating on Fue, it was kinda funny to see Asuna trying to get closer and possibly go back to be girlfriend with Fue. Although it seems Fue still like her, it was good to see her telling Asuna she will never be in contact with her anymore.

last edited at Jan 3, 2023 11:42PM

I just finished this story. What I ride. I was just going to read one chapter, but ended up binging it. Good story, but I hated it. I hated it with passion. I am fine with reading about horrible people and toxic situations. But to have an ending like this. Why must the author be so cruel?

Of all of the yuri stories I have read, with its many characters, Sacchi is probably one of the characters I hate most of all. Can we pay the author to write another story where she ends up alone and broken? Ruki should have moved on. Poor girl.

Asuna and Remi are horrible people. But still small fish compared to the vile creature that Sacchi turned out to be.

Edit: Read the discussion. Great as always! I know I'm many years late to this discussion. But the idea that Remi and Sacchi only slept together once is false. It's made explicitly clear that they have been fucking for a month. That is why Remi has the phone of Sacchi. They fucked the night before. They are both trash people. I was expecting people to defend them and was not disappointed.

last edited at Jul 23, 2023 1:49PM

Wow. OMG. This was intense. I felt like I was watching a trainwreck. I was almost expecting Remi to be some sort of demon at the end. She sure acted like one. Remi was almost like an adult Fuuko from My Girlfriend’s Not Here Today. Did not like the end at all :( Do Japanese people consider this a happy ending? How is this story not more famous?

I want to say I like this, because I did enjoy reading most of it, but I just can't stand by that ending. At no point reading this story did I ever suspect that the conclusion would be that Sacchan is a remorseless cheater and Ruki is a sad cuck doormat who puts up with her.

It's really bizarre, because I thought the cheating story with Asuna and Fueko was very well handled. It was nuanced and they acted like real humans with functioning senses of guilt and self-respect.

I guess the angle was supposed to be that Sacchi was just cheating in order to process her emotions about her last relationship and convince herself that she isn't straight and really does love Ruki, but isn't that just stupid on the face of it? She doesn't even apologize, and Ruki just immediately forgives her. She's all crying talking about how her pride is completely broken and I'm thinking "Shit girl, it really must be! Have some god damn self respect!"

I just finished The Feelings We Must Endure and really enjoyed it. It's nice to find a mangaka whose preference of story feel aligned to your taste: I do love bittersweet or even cruel endings—the characters felt very realistic and their conflicts felt very human; the outcomes feel wrought with complex anxieties that are not really concluded—but it doesn't feel like I need more concrete answers to feel satisfied. I definitely want to read more by Amano Shuninta just from this and Philosophia and how much they suited me. I think the strengths of The feelings we must endure is how everyone's relationships always feel uneasy and in imminent tragedy, but that actions taken that cause the tragedies are never out of character nor without lacking reasons you can sympathize with. I do think the epilogue damaged some of the conflict's conclusions although it did help others; my main complaint of the whole manga would probably be that one of the relationships (and really a character who got a lot of focus) wasn't really that interesting or worth sympathizing with—I'm taking about Meru. Meru's character worked much better in the love triangle than with her own odd and unrelatable dilemma. I do wish like the themes established by Sacchan's epiphany and Ruki's shamelessness were expounded upon more, although perhaps putting too much attention to it would make it a far too cruel ending(which many wouldn't like) Good manga nonetheless and I feel like I'm coming close to understanding my own tastes as well.

I definitely want to read more by Amano Shuninta just from this and Philosophia and how much they suited me.

I think this and especially Philosophia are the darkest entries in Shuninta's portfolio. The rest of her stories are much less cynical and more light-hearted, especially the more recent ones. :-)

last edited at May 21, 2024 3:49PM